This address was given at the ninth World CARP Student
Convention held in Seoul on August 27th, 1995.

Thank you for coming here today to celebrate the ninth World CARP
Student Convention. This year, we are a part of the World Sports and
Cultural Festival, celebrating the excellence of both body and
spirit. In the next few days, many of the world's leading scholars,
diplomats, athletes and artists will meet as we are in conferences
and competitions involving hundreds of people of all ages from all
over the world.

Impressive though these events may be, the International Holy
Wedding Ceremony, the Blessing of 360,000 couples is the most
awe-inspiring of all. Many of you gathered here today are going to
participate in the Blessing. You will be pledging yourselves,
together with hundreds of thousands of others, in a worldwide
affirmation of the virtue of marriage. The Blessing is the dedication
of two people not only to each other, but to their families, nations,
to the world and to God.

But for most people, the Blessing is probably something of a
modern day enigma. They ask, "How is such an event possible? How
is it that such a controversial movement has persuaded people to
cross the barriers of race, nation and religion and participate in
this tremendous event? What is its meaning?

Change as never before

We are living in an age of unprecedented hope and opportunity for
world peace. Since the fall of communism just five years ago, the
world has been changing at breakneck speed. Freed from the cold-war
specter of nuclear holocaust, the nations and peoples of the earth
are drawing closer and closer together. Korea was once called the
"hermit kingdom" but it is now a major crossroads of the
world. Our gathering here is a symbol of how we are truly becoming a
global village. As the barriers that separated us disappear, we
realize how strongly we are dependent upon each other for our mutual
well-being.

Even more striking is the technological and communications
revolution, the opening of the information superhighway. New words
are coming into our language almost every day: e-mail, the Internet,
the World Wide Web, hypertext, windows, gophers and other strange
inhabitants of the world of virtual reality. With a laptop computer,
a student can research materials from a library on the other side of
the planet and e-mail work to his professor without having to even
visit his university. Add a cellular phone, and he can do all of this
while fishing on a peaceful riverbank. Now that's progress!

An entirely new dimension of life is emerging that is
revolutionizing and changing every aspect of our lives. We are lucky
to be living at this most exciting time in history and to witness
this remarkable change.

A Reality Check

Yet at the very same time as this great potential for world peace
and harmony appears within reach, the sobering reality is that the
human race is facing one of the gravest challenges in our history.
Tremendous problems, both external and internal, are eating away at
our well-being, like a hidden malignant cancer. The end of the cold
war, for example, has not meant the end of war or

conflict. The gap between the rich and poor nations is widening.
Disease, famine, conflict and a host of other problems continue to
bring misery to large parts of the human family. Racism is yet
another scourge that refuses to go away.

More troubling than any of these grim problems, however, is the
moral decadence which is slowly destroying every nation. Divorce,
child abuse, promiscuity, and homosexuality are relentlessly
assaulting the family, the basic unit of society itself. The
breakdown of the family is directly linked to the inexorable rise of
crime and violence. The terrible emotional consequences of a broken
home shatter the lives of millions of innocent children every year.

Some of society's ills, like poverty or disease, may be cured by
economic assistance or technical breakthroughs in medicine and
nutrition. But the breakdown of the family is not a problem that we
can expect to be solved simply through economic or social programs.
Indeed, advanced societies are the very ones most affected by the
disease of immorality.

Something is deeply wrong

The fact is that there is something deeply wrong with human life.
There seems to be some fundamental conflict inside every person,
leading to personal distress, family collapse and ultimately
threatening to tear apart society itself. Where does this problem
come from? How can it be solved? No one has known what to do with
this disturbing question.

For the greater part of this century, the followers of Marx and
Lenin were confident that they knew the answers. They would remodel
society based on a new view of the human as a material being. But
after seventy years this unsuccessful experiment has been rejected.
Once the truth of communism's injustices and failures could no longer
be hidden, the end came quickly.

Western-style democracy also has serious shortcomings. The fight
for freedom has too often become perverted to the pursuit of selfish
individualism. But freedom without responsibility is no freedom at
all. In fact, many societies are today trying to defend themselves
from what they perceive to be the harmful influence of Western
culture.

What about religion, so long the protector of moral values? Sadly,
the great religions have lost their confidence. Religious leaders
hesitate to boldly denounce evil . Indeed, some of the worst of
today's conflicts have their roots in religious dispute. Young
people, though desperate for spiritual truth and inner happiness, are
increasingly finding the established traditions irrelevant.

With so many retreating from public commitment and social
responsibility, the world is facing a terrifying absence of effective
moral leadership. We desperately need a group of people, even if
small, who can lead the world with a new vision. The world is
slipping into moral chaos and we have to reverse the tide.

This is the task that we CARP members must set before ourselves.
As young people, we are inevitably going to be the leaders of the
future. We are the ones who must take responsibility to meet the
challenge of our time and overcome it.

That is why CARP members from around the world are offering
themselves for public service and self sacrifice. This summer, for
example, members of World CARP in America completed an ambitious
community service program. They brought hope to the lives of
thousands of disadvantaged people.

That service was offered quietly and humbly. But it was recognized
by governors, congressmen, mayors and community leaders as precisely
the example that young people need to be setting today. They
testified that CARP members had restored their faith in America's
youth.

Elsewhere, CARP members have been working hard in a variety of
significant programs. In the former Soviet Union, CARP has developed
a new morals curriculum for high school students. It is already being
taught in schools from Moscow to Vladivostok. In China, we are
assisting with the creation of a values education program. CARP has
brought students from North and South Korea together in dialogue for
the first time in decades. In South America, government leaders in
several nations are directly encouraging their top students to
participate in CARP programs. In fact, wherever you go, you will find
CARP members trying to take responsibility for change and reform.

Despite all these efforts, we still have a long way to go. And how
can we be confident that CARP can succeed where so many have failed?

A new vision is needed

What makes us confident is that we have a profoundly different
worldview to guide us. That vision comes not from the realm of
politics, economy or science but from the inner world of heart and
spirit. This is the significance of the Divine Principle, the
teaching and lifework of our founders, the Reverend and Mrs. Sun
Myung Moon.

Rev. Moon is a true visionary, who can not only see a better
future but is willing to act to bring it about. He has spoken at
length of the future world of the 21st century. He has called for the
equalization of technology between the nations of the developed and
developing world; and embodied that philosophy in the many
enterprises he has founded. A few years ago, he spoke here in Seoul
about the need for free travel throughout the world. He next proposed
and backed the International Highway Project to link all nations
together.

He has also called for the leaders of the world's religions to
unite, meeting many of them in person. He has published a book of
sacred scripture showing the close relationships between all faiths.
He is developing an international university, a United Nations
college, committed to promoting education for global responsibility
instead of just local or national interests. He has been training
young people to love the ocean and know how to use its resources to
end world hunger. Through these and many other projects, he has been
working diligently to contribute to a brighter future for the world.

Above all, however, he has been tirelessly teaching the necessity
of fundamental moral change in the lives of young people. This will
happen through the transforming power of the Divine Principle and the
Blessing.

One of the many aspects of his teaching is that we human beings
are created to live by conscience. Each one of us has within
ourselves an inner guide, ceaselessly directing us to do the right
and the good and to shun wrong. Yet we all know how difficult it is
to truly follow our conscience even for one day!

One reason for this moral confusion is that our society has become
obsessed with material pursuits. People are more interested in
striving for wealth, power, and possessions than for personal
spiritual maturity. But this is a wrong ordering of priorities. It is
like the body leading the mind in an individual. The problem is
exacerbated in this time of moral relativism. Good and evil are not
fashionable words today. Right and wrong are sometimes said to be
merely a matter of opinion.

In the midst of this moral chaos, Reverend Moon has been an
outspoken champion of the absolute values which proceed from God, our
creator. He teaches that we should follow those universal spiritual
laws with absolute faith, love and obedience.

To do this, our invisible mind and conscience must discipline and
channel the energies of our physical body. This means taking a stand
in a world full of temptation where instant gratification is the
norm. There is a common saying that before attempting to rule the
world, one should first learn to rule oneself.

Search for the ideal family

The spiritual path does not stop at the level of the individual.
In fact, we cannot reach maturity alone. God created us to relate
with Him and with each other in true love. And He established the
ideal family as the school where we are to learn what that love is.

In the family, our first experience of love is of course from our
parents. Who can forget their mother's love? As we grow, we learn to
be filial to our parents and by extension loyal to our teachers, our
society and our nation. Next, we learn a different kind of love in
relationship with our brothers and sisters. This reciprocal
relationship is the basis on which we learn to develop lasting
friendships and fidelity and commitment to our spouse.

Finally we become parents ourselves. We are then faced with the
challenge of loving unconditionally. Rev. Moon has offered the
following definition of unconditional true love, which is also God's
love: To give, to forget that you gave, and to give again and again.
When we learn true love in our family, it becomes the treasure we
pass on to our lineage, the future generations.

Today, however, spiritually and emotionally immature individuals
create families which are inevitably unstable and far from the ideal.
All the conflicts which rage within the individual reappear with more
intensity on ever widening levels, from the family to the nation and
the world. Instead of being a school of love, today's family has
become for many a training ground for despair. The search for the
ideal family is, therefore, of fundamental importance to all of us.
Without it, we can never attain world peace.

In search of the paradigm

Our founders Reverend and Mrs. Moon have dedicated their entire
lives to the realization of the ideal family. This is why people all
over the world regard them as True Parents. When the whole world
mocked them for even making the attempt, they were offering silent
tears and making unknown sacrifices to patiently lay the foundation.
They desperately sought to discover that which is true, absolute,
unchanging and eternal, and to live by that standard.

As True Parents, they are today calling upon all of us to inherit
the eternal tradition of the Blessed Family, living in absolute
faith, love and obedience. The Holy Wedding that will take place the
day after tomorrow is witness to this determination. Can such an
event happen by chance? Is it merely a feat of organization? Not at
all! It is the result of a lifetime of dedication and sacrifice.

For the first time ever in human history, hundreds of thousands of
couples will dedicate themselves all at once to live for the sake of
others, for the world and for God. Among all of these people, we CARP
members should be the ones who make the most sincere effort to
inherit the founder's example of unconditional giving.

Today, therefore, I want to ask each and every person present to
determine to uphold our founder's tradition. Let us act according to
the principle of self-sacrifice and living for others. Let us unite
our minds and bodies and follow our conscience. Above all, let us
work together to create ideal families and communities of true love.
In this way, we can harness all the wonderful opportunities of today
and build the bright new world of tomorrow.

Thank you for your attentive listening. Especially for those of
you participating in the Blessing, may I offer you my heartfelt
wishes for a long life of love, happiness and prosperity. May God
bless all of you and your families.